High school wrestling: Perry goes 5-0 in opening day at state

Teammate Alec Schenk made sure he was out at the front of the tunnel as the first round of the state wrestling tournament was getting ready to start on Thursday, just to get a glimpse of the bright lights before action got rolling.

Back in the bullpen, Collin Dees was antsy in anticipation of making up for being pinned in 50 seconds in last year's tournament opener.

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Yes, to a man, the quintet of wrestlers representing Perry at Value City Arena were a butterfly-riddled mess on Thursday.

They just didn't act like it when it mattered.

The Perry five went 5-0 in the opening round of the Division II tournament, including three pins and a technical fall. With the hot start, each of the five Pirates are two Friday wins away from putting themselves in the state championship round on Saturday evening.

Assistant coach David Sarosy admitted "nerves played into it," when chronicling his team's early-match mentality. But the nerves obviously didn't stick around very long.

"As soon as you step on the mat, you know it's business," Miller said. "You've got to go out there and do your best."

Added Sarosy: "We brought five guys down, and our goal was certainly to win all five of those and advance on. Now we can go back and have dinner."

And relax a little after a job well done.

With the 5-0 start, Perry is in fourth place in the Division II team rankings with 17.5 points, behind tournament leader St. Paris Graham (23), CVCA (20.5) and Uhrichsville Claymont (18).

"I love seeing us up on that board," senior 195-pounder Evan Nichols said. "It's about time we get there."

Nichols did his part to get the Pirates that high on the leader board. He locked Thornville Sheridan's Darren Scott in a nearside cradle for a second-period pin.

One mat over, heavyweight Miller was enforcing his will on Wilmington's Kevin Phelps with a bundle for a pin -- and a few mats away, Schenk was finishing off Monroe's Chris Wilson with a first-period pin at 160.

Those three rapid-fire pins came on the heels of Aaran Gessic stretching Lima Shawnee's Kane Plaugher in a banana split as part of a 16-0 technical fall at 126, and Dees (113) putting together a 5-1 technically sound decision win over Miami Trace's Trent Duffy.

It would have been difficult for the Perry staff to draw up a better round than the Pirates had on Thursday.

Miller had a sense of humor about his win.

"Usually my first-round matches are really, really bad," he said. "So it was good to get that off my chest. ... I went with my biscuits and gravy -- the bundle."

Nichols said he tried an uncharacteristic armbar in his match, but them remembered a preseason talk with Coach Dave Rowan.

"He told us to take one move, stick with it and make it your move," Nichols said. "Mine is the cradle."

Tutolo said there is some pressure on him as a returning state runner-up, but "that means people are scared of me and thinking about me. I'm just ready to wrestle. I'm hungry."

So is Szep, who hopes to get to the state title match at 195, possibly for a rematch with Perry's Nichols. But he knows he has work to do in his half of the bracket first.

"Lehner, I've been thinking about him all year," said Szep of Lexington's Josh Lehner (49-0), who Szep could face in the semis tonight. "One more match and I get to see him. I'm excited about that. But I've got to focus on my next match first."

All eight of the News-Herald area wrestlers in Division II are alive, thanks to wrestle-back wins in the consolation match by Taton and University's Walker Chieffe.